Sam Reich, the 23-year-old grandson of postwar British textile designer Tibor Reich, is relaunching Tibor as a luxury brand,
the
Financial Times
reported.
Reich plans to start producing about ten woven fabrics based on his grandfather's designs in May and will market them to interior designers and custom furniture makers, the article said.
In addition to relaunching Tibor Reich's designs, “we do want to employ new designers to give the brand new life,” Sam Reich told the
FT
.
Reich studied history at the University of Bristol and started a company that converted CDs to MP3 format, the article said. Among his advisers is his father's cousin, interior designer David Bentheim, who worked in the original company in the 1960s, according to the report.
The original factory closed in the 1970s because of competition from cheap imports. “But luckily for Mr. Reich, his grandfather never sold the company name and more importantly always kept control of the archive,” the
FT
article said. The archive consists of about 30,000 items such as original drawings and swatch books, the article said.
Sam Reich is managing director of Tibor and owns the company along with his father, graphic designer Alex Reich, and Tibor Reich's three other children, the
FT
report noted.
“While setting up the new company, Mr. Reich listened to tape recordings his grandfather had made, in which he talked about designs that were underperforming and those that would do well,” the article said.
Tibor Reich, who died in 1996, was the son of a wealthy Jewish Hungarian industrialist who came to England to escape the Nazis in 1936. His business started in couture and evolved into fabric for the furniture trade in the 1940s, the report noted.
Sam Reich “hardly remembers his grandfather” but is inspired by his story, the
FT
article said. (Source:
Financial Times
, Jan. 7, 2015.)
-
2290 reads